10 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Web Designer in Singapore

Are you planning to hire a web designer in Singapore for your brand? In the previous article, 8 Tips for Hiring Web Designers in Singapore, we discussed the various essential factors that you should consider during the hiring process.

Despite being savvy and knowing exactly what you need to do to hire the best website design company in Singapore, there are some mistakes that you need to watch out for to get value for money and time invested in this project.

Here are ten mistakes that you should avoid when hiring a web designer in Singapore.

1: Not Knowing Your Core Requirements

By core requirements, we do not mean the technical requirements but rather the outcomes and functionalities that make your website offer the best user experience to the target customers. For example, a Singapore e-commerce site needs a secure shopping cart to function. The shopping cart also needs to be synchronised with the inventory system. The products that visitors first see when they land on the site should be based on their buying habits and interests.

Here are a few more examples of specific outcomes:

Getting your site listed among the top 3 on SERPs

Increasing conversion rate by 20%

Increasing emailing list subscriptions by 30%

Before you start scouting for a web designer in Singapore, schedule a meeting with your in-house team to list down your business requirements. Your operational and strategic plan should guide the conversation. Consider categorising the list of requirements into three groups namely:

Must have now

Must have within (given period of time)

Nice to have

Not knowing these core requirements will make it difficult for the web design company in Singapore to know exactly what you want.

2: Not Disclosing your Marketing Strategy and Business Objectives

Concisely, website requirements make more sense when presented together with the brand’s marketing strategy and objectives. They will help the web developers to come up with an ideal site development plan. More importantly, the disclosing this information will make it possible for the designer to present recommendations to you at different stages of website development.

3: Not inquiring if the Team has Web Development Skills

A decade ago, the role of web designers was different from that of the programmers. The programmers would focus on making the site functional. The web designers would only provide the desired feel and look.

That is not the case anymore – the silos between the two skills set have dissolved. Site functionality and design are intertwined. Neither coders nor the programmers can afford to ignore each other’s perspective about a project. The best web design company in Singapore have a team of developers on board that work hand in hand with the design team to ensure clients’ needs are met amicably.

Save yourself the hustle managing two vendors, by selecting an agency that has an in-house team of web programmers.

4: Not Checking the Web Designer’s Website

The first thing that you need to note is that it is very easy for any business to fall victim of the shoemaker’s children syndrome. That is, the web designers are so busy revamp other business websites that they hardly have time to work on their own.

To get the best results, it is recommended to hire a web designer in Singapore who is an expert and has enough staff and resources to manage their own website. Ideally, the site is evidence of their talent and ability to design stellar websites for businesses in Singapore.

5: Sacrificing Quality for Price

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. That is, the quality of the web design service is hinged on the cost. As you look of a web designer in Singapore, be vigilant not to sacrifice quality for price. The cheap options might look attractive, but remember that potential customers will first interact with your website before contacting you. Therefore, if the website is not appealing, they will not bother to contact you. Cheap is expensive!

6: Not Reviewing Past Projects and Reaching out to References

Clients who hired the web designer will give you insider information that you need to make the right decision. For instance, you will know if the designer meets deadlines and his/her level of commitment. Recent web design projects that the designer has worked on in Singapore will also help you to gauge the quality of service offered.

Reach out to at least three companies who recently hired the web designer before you commit yourself to any agency. If their responses give you confidence, you are one-step closer to identifying the ideal web designer in Singapore for your project.

7: Not Factoring in the Cost of Maintenance

Who will be maintaining the website after completion of the project?

Too often, websites fail to deliver the expected results because they are left to go stale because no planning for maintenance was done upfront.

In most cases, the content will be maintained by your in-house team, but the technical aspects of the site such as backups and security updates require specialized skills. Before signing the project to the web designer, get to know the maintenance tasks required. This information will help you prepare and allocate enough resources to those processes.

8: Not Having a Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) will make it easy for your team to add content to the website. No member of your team should need to code the site to add new content nor should you depend on the web designer to do that for you.

Before you hire the web designer, be sure the site they intend to build will be integrated with a user-friendly content management system. SharePoint and WordPress are the most popular CMS systems in the market today. Both are easy to use and no programming expertise is required to use them. The web designer should also be available to orient the team on how to use the CMS if needed.

9: The Website is Not Mobile Friendly

Over 80% of Singaporeans use mobile devices to access websites. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to make sure that your website is mobile friendly to connect with this large audience. Insist that the web designer develops a site that is not only attractive but also functional and easy to navigate on both mobile and desktop.

10: Fail to Personally Test the Site Before and After Launching

Testing the site before and after the launch will help you identify flaws that should be rectified before it is too late. Test all functionalities and navigation before signing off the project and making the final payment. You can also request your colleagues to do the same before to be sure everything is working as expected.

Closing Remarks

A professional web designer in Singapore will help transform your ideas into a stellar website that is fully functional, user-friendly, dynamic, mobile friendly, and secure.

Author Bio

Tom Koh is widely recognised as a leading SEO consultant in Asia who has worked to transform the online visibility of the leading organisations such as SingTel, Capitaland, Maybank, P&G, WWF, etc. Recently he was instrumental in consulting for a New York-based US$30B fund in an US$4Bn acquisition. Tom is a Computational Science graduate of the National University of Singapore. In his free time he performs pro-bono community work and traveling. Google+